Hummingbirds
by Klioud
Summary: October 11th. Contains Spoilers. Yusuke arrives early at the Shujin Academy's rooftop to help transplant Haru's flowers.


Yusuke remembers little of what he dreamt of last night. All he has is the vaguest sense that he had been someplace without gravity.

That alone is enough to make a well-educated guess as to where his dream took him.

Each Palace has captured his imagination in one way or another. Never before had Yusuke seen Shibuya from so high above than he had from the esplanade in Kaneshiro's Palace. The streets below and every shadow within them had been recast in shades of chartreuse. Likewise, Futaba's pyramid was as fascinating as it was disturbing. Its peak shone like a beacon under that never-setting sun.

It is understandable that Kunikazu Okumura's Palace would intrigue him as well.

Outer space was not a place Yusuke ever thought he would visit. Technically speaking, he does not believe he has: it had been a galaxy constructed entirely from Okumura's cognition. There is no way for Yusuke to compare what he experienced in those heart-pounding leaps between airlock ports and true zero gravity.

It is unlikely that one would bear any resemblance to the other. Palaces are almost by definition unnatural. Distorted hearts are incapable of producing anything but that which is twisted and malformed. Consequently, every cognitive construct he has ever encountered has either been an exaggeration or a misrepresentation.

Yet that does not mean these constructs are complete fabrications: there can be some measure of truth to them still.

 _I DO THIS WITH JOY!_ the robots had said. The memory makes his jaw clench. It strikes too close to home. Even now, Yusuke finds that his heart pangs for who he had been. Pangs for who he could have been.

He finds his heart aches on Haru's behalf as well.

Yusuke knows more than he feels might be appropriate about Haru. Whatever privacy she should have been owed had been disassembled inside of that interstellar factory. He knows about the bruises left on her arm from Sugimura's grip. He heard in-person her father's truest opinion of her worth. He has seen her sob powerlessly into the backside of her hands. Seen her pull vivid colours out from her heart and cast them into the consciousness of their enemies. Those colours would tear their foes apart from the inside out.

There had been something spellbinding about Haru's awakening. He recalls Milady's grand entrance: his rib cage shook when her skirts drew back to reveal her true face. Shook when Haru brandished her pointer finger like it was a weapon twin to those that formed Milady's tongue and teeth. _Farewell, dear Father!_ she had cried.

As he climbs the stairwell leading to Shujin Academy's rooftop, Yusuke suspects he might still be enchanted.

October has lent a bite to the air. It nips at the bare parts of his skin as he steps clear of the door out onto the rooftop.

"Ah, hello!"

Yusuke turns to find Haru directly to his right. She runs her hands down the front of her cardigan. Stacked plastic pots, several pairs of work gloves, and hand-held gardening implements lie on the three-legged classroom desk beside her. Haru must have been organizing them until just now.

It is good to see that she is dressed appropriately for this temperature: the cardigan looks warm. It is also a very nice pastel hue. Pink is as much her colour as violet is.

"Hello," he replies. "I take it I'm the first to arrive?"

Haru nods. It seems silly that he should be: Kosei High School is not close by, whereas everyone else is only a floor or two below them. But he had been the first of their number to volunteer his time to Haru. So perhaps it only makes sense that he is.

By now, he has acclimatized to the air. Yusuke begins to roll back the sleeves of his uniform.

"Where should we begin?" he says. Haru's eyebrows shift upward.

"We don't have to start right away," she says. "We could wait for the others, if you'd like."

"I'm certain they'll be along shortly," Yusuke says. Tugs on the edge of one of his rolled sleeves to test its snugness. "In the meantime, could you show me how we are to transplant them? I'm afraid I've little experience gardening."

"If you're sure," she says quietly. "Right then. You'll need gloves."

Haru grabs him a pair from off of the desk. Passes them to him. She then leads him the few metres over to her school-top garden. Plastic flowerbeds are lined up along a series of pipes that lead to what look like air conditioning units. A few empty pots are stacked together underneath a nearby classroom desk. Most of the flowers are little more than leaves or naked shoots at this point. Save a wilting few.

"Hm, what are these?" he asks. Kneels down before a bed of tiny flowers with many drooping petals.

"Oh, those?" Crouching down beside him, Haru hugs her knees. "They're a kind of dahlia."

"Oh! I've seen dahlias before, but I wasn't aware that they could be so small."

"I wasn't either," Haru says. "Even now, the first ones that come to mind are dinner-plate dahlias. I was so excited to find out about the smaller ones— I don't believe the school would have liked it if I tried to grow anything bigger than these. The rooftop's been the perfect place to grow them too" —Yusuke lifts his gaze to her face. Recognizes what he sees in the shape of her mouth. In the openness of her already-large eyes— "since they need a lot of sunlight. But now that it's been getting colder, I think it might be time to dig up the tubers. I'll have to cut— ah, sorry! I, this must be boring."

Her smile turns sheepish as her cheeks flush. Yusuke feels something inside him lean forward against his chest.

"Not at all." Deliberately, he smiles. "Please, continue."

Haru blinks sharply at him twice. Then drops her gaze. Her head bobs a little.

"Well, um... you see, for dahlias, it's best to dig up the tubers in the fall." Digging into the side of her calf, her fingertips stress the fabric of her tights. "This is my first year growing them, so I'm not sure exactly when they should be dug up, but I read that..."

Haru talks. Yusuke feels that he watches more than he listens. It is hard to keep up with all the information she gives him. He does not retain what temperature she says to store dahlia tubers at. Does not retain what material they should be packed in to overwinter. He hopes she does not test him on this later. Finds himself too preoccupied with how her smile has grown.

Eventually, her fingertips fall away entirely from her leg.

Haru pulls her phone out from one of the pockets of her cardigan. Holds it between them. Opening its image gallery, she swipes through picture after picture of flowers that she herself has grown. There are flowers with enormous petals the colour of citrus fruit. Flowers with petals small and few and the same shade as the moon. She shares with him each of their names and their idiosyncrasies.

Her finger swipes across the screen. Yusuke only has a half-second to register what he sees before Haru swipes again. The ocean is a rich jade under a cloudless sky. In the foreground sits a shaded and weathered wooden bench. Flowers crowd it. They drape over the backrest and peek through the openings between the planks of wood.

"Hawaii?" The name slips through his lips. The next picture loads: a close-up of a yellow hibiscus plant. But it is the bench that has his attention. He had been there before. Coincidence had brought him to that very same beach.

Haru had been there too.

Yusuke remembers now: she once sat alone on that shaded bench with her phone in hand. The humidity had made her hair that much curlier.

That had been the first time they met.

More memories of Hawaii resurface. There had only been a few hours available during the day where he could spend time with his friends. Yusuke vaguely remembers Ren taking a picture of them all together. The remainder of his trip had been spent in the cheerless company of his classmates as they shuffled through historical sites. Even that company had been fleeting. He recalls that his roommates sneaked out of the hotel room after curfew. It had been pleasant to have the room all to himself.

Now he wonders where Haru had been at that time. Perhaps she had shared her room with friends who knew just how to make her laugh. Who took commemorative photos with her on vibrant street corners. Friends with whom she enjoyed hours of sunshine.

Or perhaps she had spent all her time in the shade: the light from her phone's display the only kind she knew.

He looks at Haru. Notices the redness to her cheeks.

"That's... we met then, didn't we?" There is something timid about her.

"I forgot," he says. Her lips twitch at his words. Then she nods.

"It's been a long time, and, a lot has happened." Haru does not look at him. Her eyes are trained on her phone as her thumb traces its edge. Then she smiles.

Worry creeps into his jaw at the sight.

Yusuke knows that smile. He has seen it on other faces. He has seen it own his own. He knows its name: resignation. Knows its other.

Loneliness.

He has never been too clear on how to confront this feeling. Never been too sure of how to go about comforting someone else. But Yusuke hopes he has unlearned any inclination to inaction.

"If I remember right, your hair was especially curly that day."

A second passes. Haru peeks up at him with her mouth a tiny _o_. Then she giggles. His jaw relaxes at the sound.

"Was it? I don't recall," she says. Placing her free hand against the floor, Haru lowers herself onto one hip. "It does tend to do that though, in the humidity." She smooths out her skirt. "You know, I remember the three of you. I'd been watching you, and— oh dear, that sounds a little, well, unsettling, doesn't it? I promise it wasn't anything weird! I'd just been thinking that I should let you know free time was nearly up, but I didn't want to intrude. You all looked so happy. You reminded me of hummingbirds."

"Hummingbirds?" Yusuke says. Chuckles. "What an odd comparison!"

"You think so? I thought it was apt." Her soft laugh intermingles with his own. It is possible that this is what she meant: to his ear, they do sound a little like hummingbirds right now.

Their conversation moves as a hummingbird might too: it returns to flowers and flits between them. Haru shows him more pictures of vivacious plants she has saved to her phone. Gestures with her palm at the flowerbeds before them.

"We'll be transplanting these ones too," she says. "If you wouldn't mind, how do you think they should be arranged?"

"Arranged?"

"I've seen some of your work," Haru says. Pulls a pair of worn gloves out of her other pocket and onto her hands. "You have a wonderful eye, Yusuke."

"Yes, well"— Yusuke can feel his cheeks heat up a little. He should be immune to praise —"I'll certainly give it a try."

Yusuke is not one to do something halfheartedly. Flower arrangement is an art: he is convinced of this as he puts each petal together in his mind. There are so many variables to take into consideration. He asks her question after question:

"What colour will these end up being?"

"How late will this bloom?"

"What shape will the petals be?"

Somewhere between the twenty-fourth and thirty-first question, Yusuke begins to wonder if he is asking too many. But Haru answers each one with a smile. He finds his eyes gravitate to the gleam of her teeth. Finds his mind filling with something other than petals.

With every glance in Haru's direction, his gaze catches on her: on the curves of her upper lip. The crest of her low cheekbone. The stray ringlet of apricot hair that falls in front of her eyes.

Apricot is as much her colour as pink is. It is as much as her colour as violet and cobalt teal and bismuth yellow. As citrus fruit and every shade of the moon. Her being _brims_ with colours. It floods his consciousness. They might well rend him apart.

He suspects they already have.

One half of him arranges flowers. The other envisions painting her visage. There is no colour he would not use.

"Perhaps we should plant the snapdragons next to the cosmos," Yusuke says. "As for the Icelandic poppies, I suggest that they be planted with these ones."

Haru nods enthusiastically. Sunlight speckles her eyes. For them he could use purple madder and transparent maroon and—

"They'll look beautiful together," she says as her eyes crinkle. Yusuke has never seen her smile so widely before. "Thank you, Yusuke!"

His rib cage trembles.

 _Click!_ Red-faced, Yusuke quickly turns to face the door. Ann and Futaba are the first to step through it. The former raises her hand over her head and waves.

"We're here," Ann says. "Sorry for being late!"

The next few minutes are spent distributing greetings and gardening gloves among their number. All the while, Yusuke finds that the things inside his rib cage will not go still.

"So you're the one who grew these, Senpai," Ann says after they have gathered around Haru's flowerbeds. The little one-note laugh Haru lets out sounds almost nervous.

"You can just call me Haru," she says. Places a hand against her chest. "All of you can. Ah, so, the seasons are changing soon, so I thought it'd be nice for the plants to change as well." Haru turns herself around. Unexpectedly, her eyes find his. "This time, it's a Yusuke Kitagawa production."

The sound of his own name takes Yusuke by surprise. Breaking eye contact, he shifts his weight backwards. Tries to recover his senses.

"All I did was add some... how do I put it..."— he finds his words —"aesthetic simplicity by balancing the colour placement." Yusuke lifts his eyes again to meet hers. "Furthermore, Haru chose the flowers herself. It will surely be a great bed no matter the arrangement."

"Hm, I'm looking forward to it," Makoto says from somewhere beside him. Futaba says something right after. But Yusuke can hardly hear her.

Haru's mouth is a small _o_. His heart aches at her surprised expression.

She is an artist. There is no other word he would use to describe what she does. She grows beautiful things. Pulls colour from out of seeds and into reality. His artist's eye can recognize another.

There is something limitless about her essence. Yusuke hopes that she knows that now.

He will make sure that she does.


End file.
